Del Norte High School and Oak Valley Middle School recently won their respective divisions in the SoCal Cyber Cup Challenge.

The competition is a national model program focused on raising awareness of cyber security, education and empowering youth to play safe in the cyber world. It also teaches students the rules that major companies rely on for their security needs, which presents them potential career paths in the future, according to contest officials.

Led by computer experts, the students were given various cyber security breaches that were to identify and defend in a simulated real world scenario.

Del Norte High School was the varsity winner. It received $4,000 for the team’s 2017-18 school year. The team has also been invited to participate in an elite Cyber Boot Camp this summer. The second place prize of $3,000 went to Westview High School in the Poway Unified School District.

The Junior Varsity winner was Oak Valley Middle School, which also won $4,000 for its team. Other Poway Unified campuses that placed were Black Mountain Middle School (received $3,000 for second place) and Design 39 Campus (won $2,000 for third place).

Over the course of several months, more than 800 students competed and eight campuses (four at each level) won cash prizes in the contest finals. The competition was open to teams from San Diego, Imperial, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, officials said.

The contest is sponsored by the Securing Our eCity Foundation in partnership with the National Defense Industrial Association, National University and Leidos.